Gothic Literature II: American Gothic

Course Code: CL 142 NE (online-English)

Course Dates: Commences April 4th 2011

Instructor: Daryl Morazzini

Description:

In this, part two class, we will turn our gaze from Gothic Literature’s origins in Europe, to its journey over the Atlantic, and over to the United States. Gothic Literature, arriving at first in New England, and then spreading into the American South, carries on many of the major devices and tools of its European counterpart, while expanding and adding its own, unique essence to the tradition. The study here is two fold: First, students will be introduced to the “New England Gothic,” often times called, “The Dark Romantics,” and begin to ask questions such as: “What becomes of Gothic Literature once it reaches the shores of North America?” “How is the Dark Romantic Tradition keeping the European Gothic tradition alive? How is it transforming it?” Secondly, students will be introduced to a distinctive transformation within the Gothic Canon, that is, America’s, “Southern Gothic Tradition,” a world filled with wandering, isolated  highways, conservative Christian values, and serial killers more Christ-like than they are infernal. Among the authors we will look at are: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe,  Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Kate Chopin, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor.

• In this course students will begin reading American Gothic stories right from the start. Some emphasis will be given as to the influence of the European tradition, but mostly, students will look at the American tradition from its own standing, its own being, one rooted in the haunted New England landscape, empowered by a growing fascination with Occultism.
• Week Two brings students to one of America’s most Gothic and haunted places, Salem, Massachusetts, and to its most famous writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Students will see how Hawthorne uses the Gothic tradition to also develop two distinct literary genres of his own: Short Fiction and Dark Romanticism. Emphasis will be given to Hawthorne’s, “changing of the rules,” while also his, “debt to England.”
• Week Three offers students the writer, the poet, the image of the Gothic master personified: Edgar Allen Poe. Students will examine Poe’s poetry, verse, literary criticism, and his living of the “real” Gothic life.
• Week Four will bring students to their final New England author, Herman Melville. Melville’s works depart significantly from the previous, American Gothic authors, in that, his writing looks deeper at the lived New England experience. Emphasis will be given on the relationship between the, “lived experience,” and “the literary experience.” If Melville is successful, the two are inseparable, and he sets the stage for the Southern Gothic writers that follow.
• In Week Five students take an 180 degree turn, and leave the scenic paths and romantic forests of New England for the hidden roads and empty countryside of America’s South, a land filled with mountain lore, conservative Christian values, and a culture suffering from a lose of identity following the American Civil War. Picking up the Gothic in this environment, Flannery O’Connor, the “mother of the Southern Gothic,” brings readers into her world of theology and murder.
• Week Six shows students the virtual explosion of Southern Gothic Literature. Students will pay special notice to the new conventions and innovations that Southern Gothic authors bring to the genre.
• In Week Seven, students are introduced to the writings of Eudora Welty. Welty’s, Southern Gothic is less violent, less haunted, and returns to the reader in many ways to the awe and fascination with nature, which the European Gothic founders first addressed in their stories. Students write will be reading Welty and discussing whether or not the Gothic has gone “full circle.”
• While students write their final papers this week, they also return to New England, to one of America’s greatest authors, H.P. Lovecraft, who reinvents the Gothic tradition in many ways, with his interests in science, occultism, and horror. In many ways, Lovecraft contributes to the American Gothic what Shelly’s Frankenstein contributed to the English Gothic: a summary, an innovation, and a departure point for new inquiry into, “The Gothic.”

Prerequisites: While not mandatory where students are able to demonstrate a basic working familiarity with the Gothic genre, it is strongly recommended that this course be preceded or followed by its twin course:  CL 141 NE Gothic Literature I: The European Tradition.

Suggested Complementary Courses:

CL 233 Yeats and the Occult
CL 201 Lovecraft: Writings and Mythos
CC 176 Occultism in Popular Culture

Languages: English only. Our English language requirements do apply to this course.

Delivery: Online only. A substantial amount of reading material will be made available to students through our online learning centre.

Students may also choose to audit this course.
Scholarships apply for this course.

Week 1	Topic: What is meant by, “The American Gothic?” Reading: Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Rip Van Winkle.
Week 2	Topic: Birth of Short Fiction, Dark Romanticism, a Continuation of the Gothic Tradition Reading: Nataniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown. The Birthmark. Rappaccini’s Daughter. Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.
Week 3	Topic: Edgar Allen Poe: Gothic Personified Reading: Edgar Allen Poe: The Black Cat. The Cask of Amontillado. The Fall of the House of Usher. The Raven. Selected Poems.
Week 4 Response Paper due	Topic: The New England Gothic Defined Reading: Herman Mellville: The Bell Tower. Bartleby the Skrivener. Moby Dick (selections).
Week 5	Topic: Birth of the Southern Gothic Reading: Flannery O’Connor: A Good Man is Hard to Find. Temple of the Holy Ghost. The River. Good Country People. The Life You Save May Be Your Own.
Week 6	Topic: Developments of The Southern Gothic Reading: William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily. E.B. White: The Door. Shirley Jackson: The Lovely House. Sylvia Plath: Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams. Harlan Ellison: Shattered Like a Glass Goblin.
Week 7	Topic: The Natural World of the Southern Gothic Reading: Eudora Welty: A Curtain of Green
Week 8	Topic: The Gothic Redefined (Again!) H.P. Lovecraft Reading: H.P. Lovecraft: Call of Cthulhu. The Alchemist. The Lurking Fear. The Rats in the Walls.
Week 9	-Research Paper Due -Oral presentation of Research Paper -Learning Journal Due